Ἔριν ______.
reveal/hide answer
Ἔριν μίσει.Μὴ ______ Καμάριναν.
reveal/hide answer
Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν.______ πάθη πάντων.
reveal/hide answer
Κοινὰ πάθη πάντων.______ πίσσης γεύεται.
reveal/hide answer
Μῦς πίσσης γεύεται.Εἰς ______ πτύεις.
reveal/hide answer
Εἰς οὐρανὸν πτύεις.Ἔριν μίσει.
Hate strife.
Don't let μίσει fool you: that's the imperative form of an -εω contract verb! From the Greek root μίσ- we get English words like misanthrope and misogyny. Meanwhile, for more about strife personified as a goddess, Ἔρις, see Wikipedia: Eris.
Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν.
Don't move Kamarina.
This refers to a marshy swamp outside the city of Kamarina in Sicily. Because the air of the swamp was unhealthy, the people wanted to drain the swamp, but the Delphic oracle told them: Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν. The people ignored the oracle, drained the swamp, and thus exposed their city to attack by their enemies. The saying of the oracle came to be used like a proverb, and as such it is the subject of a poem in the Greek Anthology.
Κοινὰ πάθη πάντων.
Suffering is common to all.
These words come from the "gnomai" supposedly composed by Phocylides, the 6th-century B.C.E. poet, although the work is now usually attributed to a pseudo-Phocylides, and perhaps composed as late as the 1st century C.E. by a Jewish writer. Here are the complete "gnomai" of pseudo-Phocylides if you are curious.
Μῦς πίσσης γεύεται.
The mouse is tasting the pitch.
The idea is that the pitch is part of a mousetrap: as soon as the mouse tastes the pitch, he's caught and cannot escape. Compare the English idiom about catching fish: "he's taken the bait." You've seen an Attic version of this saying in a previous blog post, citing Demosthenes. The saying also appears in one of the Idylls of Theocritus, where it is put into the first-person plural: μῦς γεύμεθα πίσσας, "we (like) the mouse have tasted pitch."
Εἰς οὐρανὸν πτύεις.
You're spitting into the sky.
This is not a good idea: the spit is going to fall right back down on you! Compare the English saying: "Spit in the wind, you'll get it back in your face." The Greek word οὐρανός meant the sky, and also the sky-god himself; you can read about the sky-god at Wikipedia: Uranus.
reveal/hide answer
Ἔριν μίσει.Μὴ ______ Καμάριναν.
reveal/hide answer
Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν.______ πάθη πάντων.
reveal/hide answer
Κοινὰ πάθη πάντων.______ πίσσης γεύεται.
reveal/hide answer
Μῦς πίσσης γεύεται.Εἰς ______ πτύεις.
reveal/hide answer
Εἰς οὐρανὸν πτύεις.
And to finish up, here's a random proverb and a random LOLCat too:
No comments:
Post a Comment